Small office from Gdansk designs cottages and conquers the Internet
Karate Project is an architectural bureau from Gdansk, Poland, that used the pandemic time to expand nationwide and refocus their business. In nearly two years, they managed to build online recognition and gather more than 22,000 people around their brand on social media - acting intuitively and without marketing knowledge. On June 29, they are sharing their knowledge of creating renders during a free webinar, "How to create renders that Instagram (and clients) will love."
Karate Project was founded by two architects from Gdansk, Karolina Taraszkiewicz and Agnieszka Malinowska. They have already worked together for many years, designing for FORT Taraszkiewicz large investments such as multi-family buildings and higher education facilities. Two and a half years ago, Karolina and Agnieszka noticed a new trend in the market and decided to establish Karate Project, as they saw an opportunity for themselves to reach out to clients from all over the country.
Karate Project
© LUMION
New trend in housing
Karolina and Agnieszka noticed that housing prices are so high that some people prefer to build small houses. They resemble summer houses, but you can live in them all year round. Especially since the pace of life in the city has become so unbearably fast that a safe haven in the woods or by the lake, where one can escape the hustle and bustle and enjoy a simple life, has once again gained in value.
Summer cottages ceased to be associated with communism and boarded-up hovels, and began to please the eye with modern, sleek forms that fit well into the green surroundings.
During the pandemic, this trend only strengthened, the need for safe shelter and restrictions on foreign travel, increased the demand for such construction, both for housing and for rent. Under the banner of Karate Project, Karolina and Agnieszka decided to design cottages and other projects aimed at individual clients and smaller investors.
What were the difficulties involved in reaching new customers?
In order to attract individual clients from all over Poland, the Karate Project architects knew that they had to reach a lot of people in a short period of time. Only then would this translate into a surge of orders. So the priority was credibility and online recognition.
A website is not enough, it is difficult to position it effectively enough for people interested in the house project to find it in a search engine. So Karo and Aga decided to create content for social media and thus build their position as experts in the small cubicle field.
Needed more renders, in less time
However, they knew they wouldn't be able to do this without a lot of quality visuals and animations. Flat drawings, floor plans, sections and elevations are not content that will defend itself on the web.
So far, they have outsourced building visualizations, visualized interiors on their own in a popular CPU-based rendering program. They have not used animation at all. However, the dozens of frames required to run Instagram and Youtube accounts forced them to create renders and inhouse animations.
It would be financially unviable to outsource them, and too time-consuming to prepare in the current mode.
Express learning, because the investment must pay off quickly
They needed a tool they could learn quickly, that would be flexible and allow them to do far more renders in less time. Aesthetics were also important - they wanted full of realism, high quality visualization. They started to consider Lumion, but their computers didn't meet the hardware requirements and a big barrier was the program's price.
One satisfied customer attracts another
Individual projects are incomparably lower budgets than large developments. And just as when working with large developers the cost of external visualizations is an acceptable percentage of the project price, with small orders this expense becomes already disproportionate. At the same time, Karolina and Agnieszka didn't want to give up renders, because they knew that clients are much more "pampered" when they get them, and one satisfied client attracts another.
They also needed them to run fanpages on social media, and couldn't find a satisfactory alternative. Eventually they were persuaded by the fact that the Lumion license is perpetual and floating. They decided to buy new computers and invest in the Lumion Pro perpetual license.
The first render sold after just one week
After just one week, Karate Project created a visualization in-house that they would have had to outsource without the program. What's more, although it wasn't at the level of their current renders, the client bought it and was satisfied.
Agnieszka Malinowska | Karolina Taraszkiewicz -.
© LUMION | Photo by Tomek Nowicki
Clients don't read flat drawings, but they love visualizations of their homes
Individual clients, unlike large developers, can't read flat drawings. Now we create visualizations already at the concept stage. It's easy to pull as many shots as needed for the client to understand the vision of the project.
The work goes smoothly, there are fewer revisions and less stress - both for the client (because he can better imagine his house and knows what he needs) and for us, because we know that the project is going in the right direction. - says Agnieszka Malinowska, co-founder of Karate Project.
In addition, with clients from outside the Tri-City area, Karate Project practices online meetings with a virtual tour of the house. The client can go up to the floor, open the balcony, look around the grounds or even enter the pool. Such a project experience builds us a better relationship with the client and consequently generates further referrals. - Karolina Taraszkiewicz adds.
And after two years, not only 22,000 fans, but...
Social media activity has surprisingly quickly translated into building a community of fans. Now the Karate Project is followed on Instagram, Facebook and Youtube by more than 22,000 people. They have built themselves high positions in the world's second largest search engine - Youtube.
If someone searches for summer house projects there (and the numbers of people who search number in the thousands) there's a good chance they'll come across their projects, because Karate Project's channel appears high on the first pages of searches. This recognition translates into real inquiries, the main source of which has now become IG.
Own store with house designs
Karate Project started by selling individual house designs, and now has a store with ready-made designs that can be purchased from them.
In addition to the business results, the architects also emphasize that they value the springboard they get from working with smaller investors. Large projects although fascinating at the concept stage often drag on and work on them becomes tedious and tedious. Working with individual clients and smaller investors gives you more variety and allows you to work with more clients from all over the country.
Webinar: How to create renders that Instagram (and clients) will love.
Karolina and Agnieszka also discovered a passion for sharing their knowledge in creating visuals. On June 29, together with Lumion, they are organizing a free webinar How to create renders that Instagram (and clients) will love. Sign up on the organizer's website.
Bios
KAROLINA TARASZKIEWICZ
Architect, Vice President of Fort Taraszkiewicz, co-founder of MataArchi, assistant at the Faculty of Architecture of Gdansk University of Technology in the Department of Urban Architecture and Waterfront Spaces. She is the originator and founder of the Karate Project media and design group, where she addresses issues related to design, 3D visualization and learning to use computer techniques in architectural projects.
AGNIESZKA MALINOWSKA
Architect, founder of Mata Archi design studio, assistant at Gdansk University of Technology in the Department of Residential Architecture and Public Utility. She has worked with many leading design studios from all over Poland, min: ATELIER 3 Girtler & Girtler Biuro Architektoniczne S.C. Warsaw, WARSZTAT ARCHITEKTURY Pracownia Autorska Krzysztof Kozłowski Sopot, P.P.W. FORT Sp. zo.o. Architects Gdansk and FORT Taraszkiewicz. In 2022, together with Karolina Taraszkiewicz, she founded the media and design group KaraTe Project.
For more information, visit the company's LUMION page on the A&B portal.
